


your law of gravity

by astrid_fischer



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 05:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16011122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrid_fischer/pseuds/astrid_fischer
Summary: They were lying side by side, feet pointing opposite directions but shoulders touching, and now Tajima pointed up at the stars again. “Okay, now do you see?”Tajima’s shoulder was warm against his. Hanai tipped his head just slightly to the side, watching him.“Yes,” Hanai said. “I see.”





	your law of gravity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hawberries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawberries/gifts).



> title from vienna teng's 'gravity'; a very excellent song which, like oofuri and tim tams, i would not have in my life if not for phee hawberries.

The thing is, _everyone_ loves Tajima. 

Everyone who’s ever met him, everyone who’s played a sport with him or had class with him or met him one time on the street in passing for five seconds. Their team, rival teams, everyone at Nishiura and everyone, probably, at schools Hanai’s never heard of. 

And the other thing is, Tajima loves everyone back. Freely. Easily. He looks after Mihashi. He makes Izumi laugh. He hugs everyone when they need it and encourages them whether they need it or not and is beautiful and sunny and brave.

And Hanai is, well. He’s _fine_ , he guesses. He’s fine at school and he’s fine at baseball. He’s alright at being captain but he could be better, because he could _always_ be better, but he’s, you know. Okay. He’s not anything special. Not like Tajima. So maybe that’s the third thing.

The three things are, one, Tajima could pick anyone, and two, anyone would want him to, and three, there would be no reason for it to be Hanai, who can be good at things but not the way Tajima’s good at things. Not anywhere close.

Oh, and there’s the fourth thing. The most important thing, or the least important, depending on how you look at it. 

The fourth thing is that Hanai loves Tajima. 

And everyone loves Tajima, so this should be obvious, maybe, implied, but Hanai doesn’t love Tajima the way everyone does and he doesn’t love Tajima the way he loves anyone else. 

It’s a little scary, actually. How suddenly it had happened. How sure he was of it, so quickly, when he’s never been sure of anything. He was fifteen and had barely even figured out he liked boys, generally, and then all of a sudden it turned out he loved one, specifically. It’s wildly unfair.

So: Hanai loves Tajima, and Tajima loves everyone. In theory it seems like those halves should fit together neatly to make one whole, but they don’t. It would be like trying to assemble one coherent puzzle picture out of pieces spilled from two entirely separate boxes. Because Hanai is ‘everyone’ to Tajima, and Tajima is everything to Hanai. 

And that’s okay, because Hanai still gets to be around him. It’s okay, it’s better than, because being Tajima’s friend and his teammate is more than Hanai ever could have hoped for. 

It’s okay, it really is, but what it _isn’t_ , always, is easy. What it isn’t is neat.

***

One of the boys from Tosei drops by practice at the start of September. 

He shows up when they’re in the middle of a game rotation and leans against the chain link fence for nearly half an hour before Momoe dismisses them, a fair-haired boy in expensive looking street clothes, looking mildly uncomfortable with so many pairs of eyes continuously flitting to him.

Hanai’s suspicious at once, because rival team members dropping in on practice rarely means anything good. 

Then that’s replaced by a different, worse suspicion when, upon spotting him, Tajima whistles through his teeth and waves energetically in the boy’s direction.

Hanai, on his way back from gathering up far-flung practice balls at the other end of the field, sees him duck around the fence and approach Tajima.

Tajima smiles broadly and says something animated that Hanai is still too far away to hear. He’s not too far away to see the boy’s body language, though; the way he leans into Tajima like he’s magnetized, how he smiles shyly and blushes all over at whatever Tajima’s said to him. How he doesn’t take his eyes off him.

“Who’s that?” Hanai asks Abe, who’s helping him clear the field. Abe looks over one shoulder. “Oh,” he says, rolling his eyes and dusting his hands off on his pants. “Riou Nakazawa. From Tosei, remember? The reserve catcher.”

“How does he know Tajima?” Hanai asks. He attempts to phrase the question in a way that sounds light and breezy, but from the way Abe’s eyebrows shoot up, he suspects he fails. He’s gripping a baseball so hard in one hand the seams cut into his palm.

Across the field Tajima laughs and slings an arm around the boy’s shoulders, and Hanai is suddenly filled with the overwhelming certainty that Riou Nakazawa is shifty and bad-intentioned and can’t be trusted. 

“They exchanged numbers after the Tosei game last summer,” Abe says, frowning at Hanai like he’s being ridiculous, which ought to be hilarious given how Abe acts whenever anyone outside the team so much as _looks at_ Mihashi. 

It ought to be, but it isn’t, because it’s hard to find anything hilarious when a boy Hanai doesn’t know is standing close to Tajima, making him laugh.

“Are you going to be weird about this?” Abe sounds resigned.

“ _No_ ,” Hanai says, offended. He chews on his lower lip for a minute and then blurts out, “Do you know how often they talk?”

“I’m leaving,” Abe says.

He continues sweeping, moving away from Hanai, who scowls after him. He finishes gathering the balls and dumps them back into their bin, then, before he can think about it too hard, cups both hands around his mouth to yell, “Hey, Tajima!” 

Tajima snaps his head up and comes bounding over at once, dragging the Tosei boy with him. “What’s up?” Tajima says, and then, airily, “This is Riou.”

“Hi,” Riou says shyly.

“Hi,” Hanai forces out. “I need you to practice pitches with Mihashi,” he says to Tajima, who says, “Okay!” cheerfully and then “I’ll call you!” to a wilting Riou before slapping him on the shoulder and jogging over to where Abe’s making Mihashi stretch in the dugout.

Hanai’s meanly pleased, and then guilty just as quickly. It’s pointless and it’s childish and it’s horribly selfish, because he had known before asking that Tajima would drop whatever he was doing if it meant helping the team. He always does.

Because they’rehis team, _Hanai’s_ his team, not this unknown boy from Tosei who’s still standing there, staring after Tajima wistfully.

Hanai recognizes the look on his face, though, and just like that all the bitterness drains out of him and he can’t even hate Riou properly. Because he gets it. He does.

***

He’s almost told Tajima three times. 

***

***

The first time, Tajima was failing math again halfway through the second term of their first year and he’d asked Hanai for help. Hanai said yes so quickly he saw Izumi, sitting across from them at lunch, cover a smirk with an unconvincing cough. 

He went over to Tajima’s house to study and was there for an hour, fifteen minutes of which Tajima spent introducing Hanai to his various pets (a dog, two cats, an overly fat hamster, and a red and white fish) and the rest lying on his back on his bed with his book on his face, complaining about having to study.

Hanai sat at Tajima’s cluttered desk, trying to focus on trigonometry but mainly just reading the same word problem over and over because all of his attention kept being pulled back to Tajima like a million invisible threads being tugged on. 

He couldn’t help fixating on every slight shift Tajima made on the bed, every faint, annoyed exhale while he flipped through the pages of his textbook ineffectually.

At one point Tajima rolled over and took Hanai’s glasses right off his face, ignoring Hanai’s startled protest, and put them on. He got very close to Hanai, kneeling on the end of his bed and blinking at him. “Your vision’s not so bad,” he said thoughtfully.

“I know,” Hanai mumbled. “I play baseball without them, remember?” 

He couldn’t quite look at him, because the lenses made Tajima’s huge brown eyes even bigger and if he looked at him he might do something stupid like kiss him. 

***

Sometimes he thinks it would be easier if Tajima hated him.

If Tajima hated him, it would kill him, yes, but at least it wouldn’t mean Tajima carelessly flinging himself across Hanai’s lap to try and grab something from his bag on the other side of him. 

It wouldn’t mean him falling asleep with his head on Hanai’s shoulder on the bus back from an especially late game across town, making soft noises in his sleep and drooling awfully on his shirt and burrowing his face into Hanai’s neck.

It wouldn’t mean Tajima sleepily leaning back into him when they’re all taking turns brushing their teeth in one bathroom at the cabin, warm and drowsy and smelling like mint toothpaste.

Hanai never tells him to stop. He couldn’t, probably, and even if he could he wouldn’t. He loves it too pathetically much to let it go, past any point of self-preservation. 

And even if he didn’t, well. It’s his problem, not Tajima’s.

***

The second time Hanai almost told him, they were at Abe’s house, all of them having dinner the way they had started to do more and more often, at someone’s house or another, after the summer tournament was over for them.

Some of them had to go home to study after, but the rest stayed and helped dutifully to clean up and then went out into Abe’s backyard to look at stars.

Mihashi and Abe went off together as soon as they were outside to do some late night practice, and Hanai honestly didn’t know if it was a euphemism at that point and was sort of too afraid to ask. 

Sakaeguchi, Mizutani, and Izumi hopped down the steps to sprawl out in the grown-out grass of Abe’s backyard, and Hanai sat down on the edge of the porch, letting his legs dangle over the edge. 

He’d expected Tajima to bound past him to lie in the grass with the others, but instead he flopped down on his back on the porch right next to Hanai and dropped his head back onto Hanai’s leg where it was resting near him, making a contented sound.

Hanai froze. His heartbeat sounded too loud to his own ears. He tried to remember normal facial expressions and breathing patterns while Tajima got settled in.

“What constellation is that?” Tajima asked once he’d made himself comfortable, pointing up at the sky.

“I don’t know,” Hanai said, and Tajima tilted his head back to frown at him. “Of course you don’t, you’re not _looking_ ,” he accused, and Hanai blushed because, of course, it was true. He wasn’t looking. He was looking down at Tajima instead. 

He was always looking at Tajima, really. Looking at him, or trying too hard not to.

So he tipped his head back obediently, scanning the night sky above them. Out in the residential neighborhoods, away from the brighter lights of town, you could see for miles. “Which one?” he asked.

“The, mmm, the one that looks like a fish.”

“None of them looks like a fish,” Hanai said, feeling a smile tug at the edges of his mouth. He snuck a look back down at Tajima, who was a warm solid weight in his lap. He was biting his lower lip in concentration, eyes focused on the night sky. Hanai thought he could see stars reflected in them.

His fingers itched to drag through Tajima’s short hair. He dug them into the porch on either side of him instead.

He wouldn’t stop Tajima touching him, but he never touched Tajima first. He couldn’t. It would set a dangerous precedent. It was the last boundary he had, and if he dropped it he wasn’t sure what would happen.

“Yes, that one does,” Tajima insisted, and pointed again. 

Hanai tried to follow where he was pointing. “I think that’s one of the Dippers?”

“Not _that_ one,” Tajima said, and sighed heavily like Hanai was being deliberately difficult. 

“I don’t see the one you mean!” Hanai protested. “Izumi, do you see a fish?”

“I’m not participating in whatever this is,” Izumi’s voice floated across the backyard. “I’m actively not.”

“Just come down here then,” Tajima said bossily, and just like that he was up and out of Hanai’s lap and grabbing hold of the front of his shirt to tug him down beside him. It wasn’t hard; Hanai didn’t even try to resist.

They were lying side by side, feet pointing opposite directions but shoulders touching, and now Tajima pointed up at the stars again. “Okay, _now_ do you see?”

Tajima’s shoulder was warm against his. Hanai tipped his head just slightly to the side, watching him.

“Yes,” Hanai said. “I see.”

***

The last time Hanai almost told him was only a month or so ago, in the middle of a practice game against Mihoshi. 

They’d practiced together a dozen times by that point and they were all pretty at ease with each other, finally, even though Hanai still caught Abe staring alarmingly at Kanou occasionally when he talked to Mihashi for too long or made him laugh or stood anywhere near him.

Hanai was on second and Tajima had Momoe signal a time out so he could jog in from the dugout. “Your shoe’s untied,” he said loudly, which Hanai had come to recognize as a cover and so stood and waited expectantly for whatever instruction was forthcoming.

He was still waiting when he realized Tajima had dropped to one knee and was lacing up Hanai’s left cleat with brisk, efficient tugs, tongue between his teeth. 

“I--what’s the new plan?” Hanai whispered out of the corner of his mouth, and Tajima beamed at him as he hopped back to his feet, patting Hanai’s shoulder. “No, your shoe was really untied! Same plan as before. We’re counting on you, you can do it!”

And they were in the middle of a game, and it wasn’t even noon on a Sunday and it wasn’t as if something momentous happened, but in that moment the feeling welled up so abruptly and powerfully that Hanai almost couldn’t contain it. How much he loved him.

It was so strong he almost blurted the words out. Almost, but not quite. 

***

***

“You’re pining,” Izumi says in the dugout the Friday before they go out to the cabin in Ohno for their now-annual practice week before summer games start up, and Hanai says loudly, “I am not _pining,_ I am making a _practice schedule_ ,” and Izumi gives him a look that clearly conveys his doubt and turns back to his homework. 

They’re not all due to meet up for another half-hour. Hanai _is_ making the practice schedule for the weekend, because Momoe had asked him to help, and he’s taking it very seriously, the way he does everything Momoe asks him.

There’s the sound of hurried footsteps, and Izumi hums in a knowing, smug way and Hanai hisses, “Shut _up_ ,” in an undertone, a split second before Tajima throws his entire weight onto Hanai’s back and makes him gouge a pencil line across four neatly drawn columns.

Hanai grits his teeth and starts meticulously erasing the damage. “What time is lunch?” Tajima asks, noticing nothing and resting his elbows on Hanai’s shoulders so he can look over the chart. “You didn’t forget lunch, did you?”

Tajima’s elbows are digging into Hanai’s shoulders and it’s actually really painful but he’s also leaning forward so that his hair tickles Hanai’s cheek, and he’s warm and solid at Hanai’s back, and Hanai forgets what they were talking about.

“Um,” he says. “No.What?”

“ _Lunch_ ,” Tajima repeats emphatically, sliding off his elbows and draping his _entire self_ over Hanai, freckled arms flopping forward into Hanai’s line of sight.

“I didn’t forget lunch,” Hanai says loudly. He tries to shrug him off, because he can’t properly move either of his arms, but that only makes Tajima go even more boneless, weighing him down like a sack of potatoes.

“Can I have extra rice?”

“ _No_ ,” he says, and Tajima moans and buries his face in the back of Hanai’s neck. Hanai works to keep his expression cool and impassive. Captainly.

“Tajima, get off him,” Izumi says with a sigh, at last taking pity on Hanai and nudging Tajima with one foot from the other bench. “He’s trying to write.”

Hanai makes the mistake of meeting Izumi’s eyes out of misplaced gratitude. Izumi mouths “pining.”

He’s _not_ , though. Really he’s not. It’s not like he’s trying to be obsessive, it’s just that it’s hard to think about anything else because he sees Tajima _all the time._ At school, at practice, and, now that they’re all friends, in his free time too.

He’s unavoidable. Inevitable.

***

A day and a half later, they’re all stuffed in the cabin’s kitchen trying to make Sakaeguchi a birthday cake from scratch. 

It’s very clear very quickly that making this a team effort was in fact a terrible idea, because there are too many of them in the small space and eggs are being passed around precariously and Hanai is absolutely _not_ convinced that Mizutani knows the difference between baking soda and baking powder, and on top of that he has to keep snatching spoons out of Tajima’s hands because every time Hanai turns around he’s trying to eat the batter directly out of the ceramic bowl.

Abe is Abe and Mihashi is Mihashi and so naturally at a certain point Abe says something too snappish without meaning to -- not even _to_ Mihashi, just in his vicinity, because someone cracked an egg badly and there are shards of shell in the mixture now -- and Mihashi jumps hard enough in response that he fumbles the bag of powdered sugar he’s holding and drops it.

It upends all over Hanai, who had just crouched down at the precise wrong moment to retrieve more mixing bowls from a lower cupboard. 

The sugar hangs in the air all around them like snow for a snapshot instant. Everything is soft and white and quiet in the moment of ensuing shocked silence.

Then, “Apologize!” Tajima proclaims loudly into the cloudy white air as the sugar settles, like a proclamation from on high, and Hanai blinks and remembers where he is. Mihashi jumps again at Tajima’s raised voice but he doesn’t flinch the way he does sometimes, the way that makes something in Hanai’s heart hurt.

And Abe apologizes, looking vaguely guilty, because this is how far they’ve come, and Mihashi doesn’t need more than a minute to calm down, because this is how far they’ve come, and they both start to clean up the mess. 

Tajima brushes sugar off Hanai’s shoulders, grinning, and Hanai’s heart flutters because he hasn’t gone anywhere, at all. He’s stuck in exactly the same place he’s been since the first time he saw Tajima across a baseball field. 

Tajima’s attempts to dust him off are futile anyway; there’s sugar in his hair, on his clothes, his skin, coating his eyelashes. It’s going to take a shower and some serious scrubbing to get clean again.

Hanai excuses himself to go upstairs while Oki rolls up his sleeves and takes charge of the cake-making process with much more confidence and authority than he usually does anything else.

A few minutes later, Tajima opens the bathroom door on Hanai midway through changing without knocking. “I brought you some clothes,” he announces.

Hanai’s got the shower already running and his shirt half off, but it’s not like they haven’t seen each other in less, so he waves him in. Tajima shuts the door behind him and holds up the folded sweats he had bundled under one arm. Hanai assumes they’re Sakaeguchi’s, since Tajima’s own would be much too short.

“Thanks,” Hanai says, once he gets his t-shirt all the way off over his head. He shakes it out, coughing and waving a hand to clear the air as sugar drifts out like delicate indoor snow to mingle with the steam filling the room. “Watch out. It’s going to get all over you too if you’re not careful.”

Tajima shrugs and hops up on the counter next to the sink, knocking one heel idly against the cabinet. “I don’t care, I’m all dirty from practice anyway.”

Hanai sighs. “Why didn’t you shower earlier?”

Tajima looks almost offended by the question. He wrinkles his nose. “I’m just going to get sweaty again tomorrow, what’s the point?”

Hanai opens his mouth and then shuts it again, because it’s entirely futile and he knows it. “Was Momoe upset about the mess?” he asks instead.

“She said as long as she gets a piece of cake and the cabin is spotless when we leave it’s fine,” Tajima says, and tips his head to one side, watching Hanai. “You chose the wrong time to stop shaving your head, huh?” 

Hanai ruffles his newly grown-out hair with one hand, grinning ruefully as sugar billows out in a cloud that drifts around them. “You’re not wrong.” He holds up one white hand, fingers splayed, to show Tajima.

Unexpectedly, Tajima takes hold of his hand and tugs him closer, inspecting his proffered palm. Hanai doesn’t resist or ask what he’s doing, because there’s rarely much point. 

“Sad about all that sugar,” Tajima says thoughtfully, and Hanai pulls a face and says, “Yeah, well, I don’t think anyone wants to put it back in the cake.”

Tajima makes a humming sound of acknowledgment, but doesn’t let go of Hanai’s hand. He looks back up at Hanai wearing an expression of intense thought, which is somewhat unusual and therefore vaguely alarming. 

Hanai is about to ask him what he’s doing when he hums again, like he’s decided something. Then he leans forward on the edge of the counter and--as if it’s nothing, as if it’s easy, as if it’s not the single most momentous occasion in Hanai’s life thus far--presses his lips to Hanai’s, soft and quick.

Hanai isn’t ready for it, isn’t ready for anything within _miles_ of it in either direction, and he makes a strangled sound and catches hold of Tajima’s collar, holding him there when he goes to lean back. 

“What are you _doing_?” Hanai demands, voice squeaky, trying to focus over the rising hysteria. 

Tajima had just kissed him. He, Hanai, had been kissed by Tajima. _Was_ that a kiss? Was there a possible reading of the situation that meant it was something else, something mundane and un-life-altering, and Hanai had misunderstood?

Tajima shrugs unapologetically, licking his own mouth, his mouth that had just been on Hanai’s mouth. The visual brings the frantic workings of Hanai’s mind to a grinding, screeching halt. They’re only inches apart, still. 

“Sugar,” he says with a sly smile. “I didn’t want to waste.” 

He touches his tongue to his top lip again, searching for more sugar or something else, maybe, and Hanai is helpless, he’s utterly goddamn powerless not to follow the movement with his eyes.

He’s taken a step forward without even realizing, and his one hand is still twisted in the cotton of Tajima’s t-shirt, and Hanai is very sure, distantly, that he had a reason for doing this other than to pull him closer but can’t for the life of him remember what it was.

They’re so close they’re sharing breathing space, so close that the gap between not kissing and kissing is almost meaningless.

That’s what Hanai decides, anyway, or what his body decides for him because his brain is occupied still working out whether it needs to have a full-on mental breakdown. 

His body decides that the non-kissing space is, in fact, entirely unacceptable, and so he leans down to close that space and Tajima is there to meet him, surging up so enthusiastically that Hanai almost loses some teeth but it seems an entirely fair trade to have Tajima gathered in his arms, to have Tajima’s mouth on his, to be _kissing Tajima._

It’s a real kiss this time, unmistakable. Tajima’s arms are around his neck and his fingers are clutching at Tajima’s hair and Tajima is making little eager sounds into his mouth and it’s messy and spit-heavy and _perfect._

“Um,” Hanai says eloquently when they break apart this time. He feels like he’s been cast adrift, like a boat spinning and spinning with the current and no way to ground himself or sight land again. “This. What…” he casts about for several seconds and then finishes, desperately, with, “Is happening?”

Tajima blinks, leaning back against the steamed-up mirror of the medicine cabinet. The shower is still running, forgotten, and that’s very wasteful and in the back of his mind Hanai knows he should turn it off, but the air is hot and heavy and Tajima’s got one leg wrapped around his waist to hold him there and so moving seems impossible.

“Oh,” Tajima says. “I like you. Was it not obvious? I think I’ve been very obvious.”

This, frankly, threatens to re-start the spiral that Hanai had only just succeeded in halting. “I, wh, you _have not_ ,” Hanai splutters. “I would have _noticed_.”

“I have so. I was just waiting for you to catch up. I invited you over to study, forever ago, don’t you remember?” Tajima asks, and shrugs. “What did you think that was? You wouldn’t even look at me the whole time, so I thought, maybe I was wrong.”

Hanai drops his head forward against Tajima’s shoulder. “I thought you wanted _to study_!” he wails.

He feels Tajima shake with laughter. “You thought _I_ wanted to study?” He puts his hands on either side of Hanai’s face and pulls him back so he can regard him, tipping his head to one side. “I think I’m definitely smarter than you,” he says decisively, after several seconds. “Even though you do your homework, or whatever.”

“You said you hated tall guys,” Hanai says weakly.

“I meant it,” Tajima says firmly, and slides his hands up to run them over Hanai’s head instead, slow and deliberate. It tickles. It makes thrills run down Hanai’s spine. “Your hair is soft, you know?”

“I, uh, is it?” asks Hanai, who feels like he’s been hit by a truck. He hasn’t caught quite up to the reality of what’s happening, Tajima in front of him, Tajima warm and heavy in his arms, Tajima whom he had just been kissing, at length. “That’s…”

“It’s nice,” Tajima confirms for him. “I was wondering how it would feel, now that it’s growing out. I like it.” He leans in close, so Hanai can see every freckle like a star, can see the gold flecks in his dark eyes. “Do you want to kiss again?”

“Yes,” Hanai says helplessly, and surrenders himself to be kissed.

“You taste so _nice_ ,” Tajima moans into his neck, and Hanai decides madly that he’ll roll around in sugar every day of his life if it’ll mean Tajima sounding like that.

“You too,” he says nonsensically, and Tajima hums and _bites_ him, right at the juncture between neck and shoulder, and Hanai makes a very embarrassing sound that will haunt him forever and then--

\--and then, someone mercilessly _hammers_ on the door with what Hanai can only assume is the goal of ruining Hanai’s entire life. 

“You guys have been up here for like twenty minutes and it’s the only bathroom in the cabin,” Abe says through the door. “Assholes. People need to pee.”

Hanai looks down at Tajima, whose mouth is wet and red and whose eyes are big and dark.

It looks like they’ve been mugged by a bakery. There’s white dusting Tajima’s hair, all over his dark jeans, there are honest to god _handprints_ on the back of his shirt where Hanai had made a valiant attempt to get it off of him. Hanai can’t see himself in the steam-clouded mirror, but since Tajima was making a concerted effort to climb up him like a tree he can only assume that he hasn’t fared any better.

Hanai turns off the shower at last and hands Tajima a towel to try and tousle his hair back into some semblance of normal, and then, with more trepidation than he has ever felt in his life, cracks the door open so he can see Abe, scowling, arms crossed over his chest.

Abe’s eyebrows shoot up at the sight of him, and then his gaze goes past Hanai to Tajima, still sitting on the counter, and his arms slowly uncross.

After a long moment of very fraught silence, Abe blinks. “Izumi told me come to see what was taking you so long,” he says stonily. All the color has rushed to his face. “He will die for this.”

***

“But why me?” Hanai asks later that night, once everyone else around them is asleep or at least kindly pretending.

Tajima rolls over in his bedroll and props himself up on one elbow to frown at him. His shirt is worn and old and slips down over one shoulder with the movement, and Hanai is almost too distracted to hear his answer. 

He’s glad he doesn’t. 

“Because I _like_ you,” Tajima says. “You’re hot and you’re smart and you’re good at baseball.”

Hanai feels despair threaten again. “That could be anyone on the team!” he protests.

“But you’re not anyone on the team,” Tajima says, as if he’s being very stupid. “You’re _you_.”

As if, after all of Hanai’s worryings about his own inadequacies, it’s that simple. 

“Oh,” Hanai says dumbly. He lets his gaze wander over Tajima’s face, half-lit as it is by moonlight. Maybe, after all that, it is.

***

After Hanai gets a home run that wins the game against Sakitama, Tajima bounds onto the field, throws himself into Hanai’s arms, and kisses him full on the mouth in front of everyone, including both of their mothers. 

Hanai is worryingly sure his mom is going to throw a party.

“There’s no kissing in baseball!” Izumi yells from the dugout, and is drowned out by a resounding chorus of shushing and boos.

Tajima is smiling against Hanai’s mouth, Hanai can feel it, and he starts laughing helplessly.

He had thought, all this time, that there were only four things. Four truths that mattered. He was so familiar with them that they had grown smooth and worn-down, like river rocks, or well-travelled stone steps hollowed out by too many feet.

But now he knows there’s a fifth thing, and it’s new and bright and he can barely believe it’s real. He’s surprised by it every time he sees it there, with the other four, like it belongs and always has.

Tajima loves Hanai back. That was the fifth thing all along.

**Author's Note:**

> "this is barely five thousand words why did it take you a whole year to post that's embarrassing" listen...i....AM embarrassing.


End file.
